5 July 2009
editorial
Kampala — FAKE goods worth over sh120b have been seized from traders and importers in the last five years. The goods seized include foods, construction materials and electrical equipment, according to the Uganda National Bureau of Standards.
A week ago, the standards agency confiscated 450 bags of fake cement from Mengo-Kisenyi, in Kampala. Last year, the agency seized 850 bags of fake cement.
The standards agency has reported that more fake goods are getting onto the Ugandan market. But due to inadequate funding, the agency is in position to monitor only 18 of the 52 country's border entry points. Besides, a big amount of fake goods are actually locally concocted.
The proliferation of fake goods on the Ugandan market is a matter of grave concern. They pose serious economic and healthy implications. For instance, fake cement has been sited as one of the causes of the collapsing buildings in which many lives have been lost. The fake items pose a serious danger to lives of citizens. Last year several people died after they took alcohol concoctions.
The fake goods further pose serious danger to the bona fide manufacturers who pay the taxes and adhere to the established production standards and laws. The people, therefore, involved in concocting fake items for commercial gain pose a big danger to the national economy and, in effect, are economic saboteurs.
One of the obstacles to fighting these economic saboteurs is the existing laws that provide very ridiculous penalties for offenders. The punishment meted out for a person found guilty of selling or producing fake goods is liable to two years imprisonment.
This is not a deterrent sentence for people who are engaged in such destructive activities. Besides, the laws do not empower the Uganda National Bureau of Standards to deal with counterfeits, that is, products falsely bearing names of other genuine products. There is, therefore, need to overhaul the laws in order to deal with proliferation of fake or counterfeit goods.
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